Seahawks win, and all hell breaks loose

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On Monday night, the Seattle Seahawks won a football game. But that was just the beginning.

The final call of touchdown (You can see several photos of it here) after a night of questionable calls by replacement refs has the sports world lathered up. If anything, the Seahawks may have helped settle the labor dispute between the league and officials once and for all.

If the league wasn’t motivated to review its decision to lock out its officials after the final play of the Packers’ 14-12 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, then it needs to do so soon for the sake of its fan base, who through social media Monday night lambasted the replacement officials for their interpretation of the game’s final play.

It was exactly the kind of conclusion, one determined solely by officiating, that might lead the league to find a way to reach a deal with the NFL Referees Association before any further damage is done to the game, said Paul Haagen, a professor of sports and contract law at Duke University School of Law.

Here’s a sampling of other reaction:

“Clueless in Seattle” said ESPN, adding another headline “Seahawks win?”

In Green Bay early Tuesday morning, Packers fans went to Lambeau Field with signs in hand — “Speechless in Seattle” and “We were robbed in Seattle” — to protest, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette.

Years from now, the final play of this game will stand as the symbol of the entire referee lockout. (Golden) Tate’s phantom catch guarantees the standoff won’t be a moment of time lost to history. We’ll talk about it all season while discussing Seattle and Green Bay’s playoff chances.

A lot of the reaction is not safe for family viewing:

Tim Connolly, the Packers’ vice president of sales and marketing, said, “That was the most horse (expletive deleted) thing I’ve ever seen,” as he put his coat on and prepared to leave.

When the Packers took over, (Cedric) Benson fumbled on a hit by (Earl) Thomas, but center Jeff Saturday recovered at the Green Bay 2. The Packers punted, and in the final 46 seconds it looked as if the Packers would survive after the three incompletions.

Then Tate stole about half the ball from (M.D.) Jennings, and the Seahawks stole the victory.

…there is no question that Monday night’s crew of replacement officials erred repeatedly on the play in question, then lost control of the teams in one of the most chaotic scenes in recent NFL history.

Until this debacle between the Packers and Seahawks, the replacement officials were a nuisance, a punch line. They had not, aside from some randomly incorrect calls here and there, directly impacted a game’s outcome.

And then Monday’s final play happened.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, complained first about Monday night’s call, not President Obama at a town hall meeting in Ohio, according to NBC.

“I got to start off on something that was really troubling that occurred last night,” he said. “Did you guys watch that Packer game last night? I mean, give me a break. It is time to get the real refs.”

Ryan was soon back at Obama, trying to somehow compare the replacement refs and the president

Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker, who is not the politician one would think to take a union’s side in a labor dispute, is jumping in.

He wrote on Twitter this morning:

At a meeting of other Governors this am, everyone was talking about bad call in #Packers game on #MNF.

In New Jersey, the state Senate’s president says he intends to introduce legislation to ban sporting event with replacement refs, according to CBS New York.

“This past weekend in the NFL has not only made a mockery of a great sport, but shined a very bright light on how important fully trained and professional officiating is to player safety,” Senate President Steve Sweeney said in a statement. “We wouldn’t allow a factory or construction site to operate without fully trained supervisors on hand to ensure the safety of employees. Why should we do anything differently when the job site is a playing field?”